In the dairy industry strict controls and testing procedures are used to ensure only high quality milk is used to produce dairy products. Strict testing procedures are conducted on all milk supplied to a dairy factory. Any dairy farmer supplying substandard or contaminated milk is heavily penalised in the event that the deficiencies in the milk supplied are discovered.
One way contaminated milk may be supplied into a dairy farmer's collection vat is by the milking of cows which are either sick or have been medicated to prevent or combat an illness.
A sick cow may transmit to its milk the organisms or substances which are the cause of a cow's sickness. Any milk collected from such a cow would be mixed with large quantities of uncontaminated milk. Such mixing may provide the perfect habitat or environment for a harmful micro-organism to grow, ruining a large quantity of previously pure milk. The same may be true of a cow which has been medicated. The medicating substances supplied to a cow may remain in the udder or circulate through its system eventually being transmitted to the milk produced by the cow. Medications which may be beneficial to a cow can have detrimental effects on human beings, or interfere with the manufacturing processes used to produce certain dairy products.
Because of these reasons, pressure and penalties are applied to a farmer to ensure that any milk supplied is of a certain standard and purity. To this effect farmers must ensure that any animal which should not be milked is either removed from the milking shed, passes through the milking shed without being milked, or that any contaminated milk taken from such an animal is kept separate from that collected from the rest of the herd.
To ensure a cow is not milked inadvertently, several methods of identifying such cows have been developed.
Initially a contaminated cow may be marked with spray paint, or a removable tag placed on the cows leg or tail.
The disadvantages of these methods are that these markings used are not necessarily apparent to the persons milking the cow. Low light levels in the milking shed may prevent such marking devices from standing out and catching the eye of a milker. In addition, a marked contaminated cow may be covered in varying degrees with mud and excrement which may cover or obscure markings on the cow.
In contrast to the above method more recent high technology herd identification systems have been developed. These systems assign a unique identification number to each animal and mark each animal with an electro magnetic indicator such as a magnetically coded tag or radio transmitter. A monitoring system is then used to track and collect data relevant to each particular animal.
For example during each milking the monitoring system may log for each animal the amount of milk produced, quality of the milk the weight of the animal and the time taken to milk the animal. This information is then collated into a database for the entire herd, or an individual file on each animal charting the animal's growth and milk production characteristics.
This type of identification and monitoring system is extremely expensive and out of reach of most dairy farmers.
The entire system includes peripheral computer devices which manage the data logged for each animal.
Each member of the herd is required to wear an identification device, adding to the costs of these systems.
These systems are constructed from high technology components which increase the cost of the system and make maintenance a real problem for the average farmer. If any breakdown or error occurs there may be nothing a farmer can do to fix the problem.
To solve the problems mentioned above, there needs to be an alarm system with some of the following characteristics.
The alarm system would need to effectively indicate to an operator the presence of any "tagged" animal to prevent its milk being mixed in with that collected from the rest of the herd.
Such a system would need to be cheaply mass produced to place the system within reach of most dairy farmers, and allow easy replacement of any broken or faulty components.
The components of such a system need to be sturdy and water proof to allow the components to be washed down or knocked around by an animal.
The system ideally would also be self contained, possibly using batteries as a power supply and provide a highly noticeable indication of the presence of a nominated animal in the milking shed.
Such a system would also need to be simply constructed and operated to allow easy manufacture and operation of the system.
The system would need to operate within a standard proximity range, to avoid confusion over which animals had triggered the indication or alarm components.
It is an object of the present invention to address the foregoing problems or at least to provide the public with a useful choice.
Further aspects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the ensuing description which is given by way of example only.